American arms deliveries abroad have been called into question: the Pentagon has suspended arms deliveries not only to Ukraine, but also to a number of other countries. CBS News reports, citing a White House source. This decision is part of a large-scale audit launched by the new US Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, on behalf of Donald Trump. The aim of this audit is to ensure that the Pentagon has not deviated from the line of “prioritizing American national interests” in previous years.
According to a CBS News source, some nations have already been ‘reclassified’, that is, removed from the list of priority recipients of US weapons. However, the White House did not elaborate on which countries were affected by this measure.
Ukraine, which is facing an ammunition shortage, is strongly feeling the effects of this revision. With direct supplies frozen, Kiev is considering alternative supply routes. According to Politico, the Ukrainian authorities are planning to ask the USA to allow European countries to purchase American weapons and ammunition for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). Several EU governments are already discussing the possibility of financing such supplies from their own defence budgets.
According to the idea of the European countries, these expenses will be taken into account within the framework of NATO’s collective commitments on defence spending approved at the last summit of the alliance. However, as Politico highlights, no nation has yet made a firm commitment to purchase.
Senator Roger Wicker, who chairs the Armed Services Committee in the US Senate, explained that the current request from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ‘is not so much about direct financial assistance as it is about authorisation to use European funds to purchase US weapons’.
